[eBay Plus] NVIDIA Shield 4K HDR Media Player with Remote $223.20 Delivered @ Catch eBay
Original PAYGRADE 10% off Sitewide on eBay Deal Post
Even cheaper if you bought 10% off ebay gift cards
If you don’t have eBay Plus $224.10 Delivered from PC Meal eBay
Highly recommended for anyone looking at 4k/HDR @ 60hz playback for Plex, Netflix etc
I bought one with the premium of not being available in Australia at the time for $350.
$220 is a great price.
Mate,
How good is this for playing 4k downloaded content?
Can plex be connected via wifi?
Thanks
How good is this for playing 4k downloaded content?
The best product on the market for 4K Direct Play.
Can plex be connected via wifi?
Yep.
Last time I tried 4k playback over 5ghz wifi it didn't work, not fast enough transfer.
Could you hook up a HDD with 4K content and play it that way?
My test file was a 60GB 4K movie and playback over 5GHz works fine for me, this worked with no issues for both an AC and N network.
Failing that, there is always the ethernet port.
An external HDD via USB works fine as well. I have a FLIRC plugged into mine so I can use my Harmony 650 remote.
Serious question: I have a Xiaomi Mi Box (~$80), is this really 3x better? What can it do that Mi Box can't?
The Mi Box does come with a heap of issues for alot of people. I got 2 of em, on with MM the other with Oreo, and touch wood mine have been fine for what I need.
Mi Box struggles with 4K I believe, but I don't have 4k tv
It's an android box with an Nvidia video card (rather than Arm's Mali GPU) that's nearer a games console in performance (from memory, about an Xbox 360).
There's a bunch of Nvidia-exclusive games for it (Half-Life 2, for example), and it'll play back Netflix in hi-def if you have the internet connection to support that.
Most people buy the pack with the games controller as well, so they can play games on it.
I too have issues with my Mi box from the last update. Went looking at the Shield. Just checked there shield forums and its also got alot of people having issues, last update for the Shield also seems to have broken a ton of things. Not going to spend $200 on another box with its own set of problems. https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1070965/shield-tv/s…
garvani
"Just checked there shield forums and its also got alot of people having issues, last update for the Shield also seems to have broken a ton of things"
You need to be clearer as to the issues you speak of.
I have had Nividia Shield since early 2017. Rock solid and robust. Nvidia push through updates quickly
enough for my liking.
My only gripe and that shared my many others was the recent Oreo update to the Nvidia Shield Android TV o/s. These issues that people are complaining of are about the updates made by Google to the Android TV o/s and not the Nvidia Sheld hardware itself.
Slowly, fixes are being applied no doubt with pressue from Nvidia and other manufacturers. At least the restart button has been relocated to where you can at least access it quickly (previously buried in the 'About' section of the settings menu). You could say that this is a sign that Google are listening to the chorus of complaints about the Oreo update of the Android O/S. I believe the 'Channel' column on the left hand side of screen will disappear in the next update. So far to date, I still don't like the new GUI and prefer the older '10 foot' GUI.
In summary, the Nvidia Shield as a streaming or gaming device is a well designed piece of hardware and from my own experience has worked well with everything I have thrown at it.
Serious question: I have a Xiaomi Mi Box (~$80), is this really 3x better? What can it do that Mi Box can't?
Good question.
I have both devices (the Mi Box first).
Pros for Mi Box:
1. Cheap
2. has optical out (SPDIF)
3. allows audio passthrough on Netflix and Stan via optical out (only relevant if you are using an older AV receiver for surround decoding).
4. Can be controlled by both Bluetooth and IR controllers (Shield requires the purchase of an expensive IR usb add-on)
5. Power button (Shield has no power button!)
Pros for the Shield:
1. Fast, very fast.
2. Ethernet port.
3. Amazon prime video support (You can sideload on Mi, but it's terrible)
4. Can run Plex server
5. Ability to play video at its native frame rate (ie 23.976) direct to the TV.
Both devices have lots of bugs …. lots.
Thanks ash2000, much appreciated. I think I will persist with the Mi Box for now as I don't need 4k and I don't use it for games.
No worries…. I think that's a good idea, I really only got the Mi for it's Plex server support, although I am enjoying 4k streaming!
This is partly why I decided to get the Apple TV.
I have a mi box, not sure what version os etc.
For the most part is excellent. I use it to watch videos from a 4tb wd passport drive.
Issue I have is it doesnt quickly realize if the drive has been updated via sneaker net.
I have recently bought a synology which has ethernet, but no wifi on it or in my room.
Considering the shield now, as im getting more 1080p content. I suspect the hard drive is bottle neck at the moment.
VLC and Kodi are great however.
No 4k tv for me yet.
Question: Is the Mi Box fine for playback of x265 encoded videos at 720 and 1080 resolutions? My oldish TV and my video player only support x264 and older codecs. X265 is supposed to be very computationally demanding compared to the older codecs.
Yes mi box plays these fine, upto 4k res x265.
PC Meal are pretty poor at communicating, none of their phone numbers work, I had to call PC Byte (same company) to get a hold of someone.
AusPost has lost $1800 worth of HDD's last Thursday, PC Meal after 24hrs haven't opened an investigation into it (I have though)
AusPost has lost $1800 worth of HDD's last Thursday,
Shit, man. That sucks. Hope you can get it sorted. What were you planning on doing with the drives? Setting up a NAS?
Can't speak for their communication but they treat customers right. I was given free express shipping during the last deal. Saved $50. Give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
I got this unit on the last deal last week, before I was using this I had a HTPC setup. I thought I'd share my thoughts on the unit.
Pros are the unit seems to have some decent playback on video files.
Cons
I couldnt get Kodi to work with SMB fileshares nicely with my current setup. All my videos are sitting on HP microservers running Windows 10. Beyond windows version 1803, SMB 1.0 protocol has been disabled by default from the wannacry exploit, but Kodi needs SMB 1.0 as Kodi 17.6 is only compatible with this and nothing higher, Kodo v18 is compatible with SMB 2.0/3 protocol, which is still in beta, and I couldnt install easily onto this box.
I had to disable all password protected sharing in windows to get this thing to work in the end, as even going back to SMB 1.0, it wouldnt authenticate with password sharing enabled. Even after I fixed this there is a big lag for Kodi to discover the device on the network, even when I use a direct IP address for the SMB share, rather than the computers device name.
Also I like to use the logitech K400 keyboard, and I do a bit of web browsing on the TV, Android TV which is the OS (i think) this Nvidia shield runs but it doesn't come with Google Chrome out of the box, and it wasn't available on the app store, I had to download some Android Web TV thing which was just a terrible browser and then I couldn't login with my google account and pull through my passwords/bookmarks.
I think I'm going to go back to having the HTPC unit (which struggled with 4k playback) for web browsing, and the Shield for the 4k video playback files.
Or ramp up the graphics and play with the codecs on the HTPC.
Thanks, great review.
doesn't come with Google Chrome out of the box, and it wasn't available on the app store, I had to download some Android Web TV thing
Have you not "sideloaded" chrome onto your Shield, which then works perfectly with a keyboard and mouse?
I have not sideloaded anything before no, I've always just used HTPC's, this is my first real go at android tv. I shall google this and give it a go. The existing Android TV works fine with the keyboard. Its just that the out of the box web browser is pretty poor.
Agree with the sentiment it can be frustrating to setup to access content over LAN but i suspect those challenges apply to most android boxes? I have a Shield TV and it is my first proper media box, always just run a HDMI & Optical cable from PC to TV & AMP before this but i wanted to get into 4k. SMB was totally new to me, windows shares was all i knew, installed plex server on PC and eventually i got it all working (with passwords) and run big 4K MKVs beautifully. The confusion and frustration initially that took quite a bit of googling and reading to get it accessing my content seems to be mostly due to my lack of know how. To be frank im still a bit confused networking is not my cup of tea but all my issues definitely seemed to be related to what i was not doing properly and windows 10 quirks, i think. Since then have also incorporated a Synology NAS into the mix and accessing from it fine too.
Kodi 17.6, SPMC, Kodi Leia beta etc all work OKfor me (minus issues with audio sync being out, i think due to my AMP, so i have to set an offset which is easy in Kodi to adjust on the fly). Kodi leia beta was very easy to download and install, if you have issue i suspect you may of downloaded the wrong build? I did have a to re-install some things are Android Oreo update as they were buggy but once i did that seemed to settle.
Thats good to know, I'm no networking pro either and its pretty frustrating it isn't easier to do this stuff.
Do the Synology NAS use SMB file sharing? Or is that using some other method?
I'm hoping that Kodi 18.0 for Android, with the upgrade to support SMB 2.0/3.0, I'll be able to enable password sharing and turn all my settings back to how they will be smooth sailing again.
Yes pretty sure i am SMB to both my PC and the NAS. In the Shield TV settings itself you can basically mount network drives there as well, not just in the application side such as Kodi (i have done in both now). Basically because i am 1 rung above a chimpanzee i fumblingly created a new window 10 login, granted it read access, created network share of the folder(s) from PC i wanted to be able to access with read only permissions for that login. Similar i did same on NAS itself. On the shield the SMB share name for the PC & NAS is just the name of my PC & NAS. Also i read that it is wise to map the shield itself as a network drive in windows 10 to aid with it always being visible so i did that too. On my PC under the Network tree i have viewable my NAS, Shield, and PC share. Once i had this done i've not had any issues with things not appearing or slow or what not. Kodi Leia beta is good. I am scared of the day i need to start from scratch though… :D
I'm still waiting on mine to arrive from the previous deal… So sick of auspost.. Wouldn't be surprised if they've lost it.
Read above, they lost almost 2 grand worth of HDD's on me last Thursday, good luck getting these guys to assist.
I got an eBay message from them saying "We'll update you"
What would be easier for old people to play movies from a hard drive and some youtube, this or a dell optiplex? Their broken wdtv was good. I've tried a mx10 andriod box but it's a pos.
A Shield would be overkill, go for the Mi Box (I own both). Additionally, the Shield has no power button, seniors love a physical power button!
As mentioned the Shield may be overkill - as well as the Mi Box, check out the Vodafone TV, which has an excellent remote with dedicated YouTube button:
Vodafone TV is almost twice the price though!
True.
The Vodafone TV was much better value when it first released at $120, however it does have some extras compared to the Mi Box:
Oh, fair enough. Quite reasonable then, given it has a tuner.
A used WDTV would probably be better, stick with what they know.
I still have a couple of WD TV's in as new condition (with box and everything) that I will be selling on ebay. PM me if you are interested.
Is this thing a good buy if I were to simply plug my USB external 4TB HDD straight into it? I can't seem to find any restrictions for external drive support.
Yep!
You can, but chances are you'd need to have the shield format the drive in order for it to be recognised.
I have 5 external drives, none would be recognised by the shield. I had to remove the active partition (in windows) then have shield format the drive in order for it to be recognised.
A very common frustration with the shield.
Wow, i didn't know that! So basically it's just as fussy as a NAS.
You might be lucky, some do work apparently without intervention….. Apparently!
So many people using Plex. I tried it very briefly years ago and haven't looked at it since.
What does it do over Kodi? Are they even comparable anymore?
Kodi advantage is its as simple or as loaded with plugins as you want, too many for me to grasp, though i wonder how safe many are without using a VPN. Plex has advantages with using the plex server in terms of transcoding on the fly for certain situations, to multiple devices simultaneously, when your away from home to your device at whatever quality you define, casting from the app etc. It can do some cool stuff, most of which i've not used just aware of. In my experience there are exceptions to everything, nothing does everything. But if you just have content to show on one screen kodi is more than likely all you need. I have plex server installed and plex on the TV and shield. But i do most of my viewing via Kodi in living room TV (plex only by exception if i have issue with a file, rare but does happen), and other room am still using videostream with a chromecast (that darn Plasma tv just won't die).
After the latest update my MI box 3 is lagging too much and became too slow. Anyone faced this and is there any solution? Maybe I should I go for this.
A few stores are now bundling the Shield with remote plus Asus controller for $204 delivered using code PAYGRADE and the discounted gift cards:
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/153194047264
Is it possible to install Opera browser on this, run the VPN with location Americas, and watch US Netflix?
Nearly sub $200 when using the discounted gift cards:
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/404441
Some other deals using PAYGRADE and the gift cards:
$226 delivered with stand and Asus controller:
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/nVidia-Shield-TV-Box-Android-Gam…
$263 with Nvidia controller:
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NVIDIA-SHIELD-Gaming-TV-Streamin…
…or $279 from Harvey Norman with Amex.